Women philosophers: Gargi Vachaknavi, Aspasia, Ban Zhao, Hypatia of Alexandria, Rabia al-Adawiyya, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and Nana Asma’u. (more...)

Descartes admired her intelligence and Leibniz stood at her deathbed, but during most of her life, she was a penniless refugee. Meet Elisabeth, Princess of Bohemia. (more...)

How did Islam begin and expand, what do Muslims believe, and what does the daily practice of a Muslim believer look like? (more...)

In this series of posts, BVE Hyde presents a short but complete history of Japanese thought. This second part focuses on Confucianism. (more...)

Joseph Harris (2022). Misanthropy in the Age of Reason: Hating Humanity from Shakespeare to Schiller. Oxford University Press. 304 pages. Hardcover: 73. (more...)

Plato’s Apology of Socrates is one of the greatest speeches in the history of mankind. It shows Socrates’ personality and humour, as well as being a meditation on justice and honesty. (more...)

In this series of posts, BVE Hyde presents a short but complete history of Japanese thought. This first part focuses on Japanese Buddhism. (more...)

Philosopher-kings from Marcus Aurelius to Frederick the Great: What makes a good philosopher-king? (more...)

In this article, which accompanies the third in our series of philosophy videos, we look at the spiritual side of royalty. (more...)

Peter Cave’s “How to Think Like a Philosopher” is a very enjoyable introduction into Western philosophy. Light, conversational, entertaining and intellectually stimulating. (more...)

Does an ‘engaged’ Buddhist really have to draw on this picture of the Buddha as a ‘social activist’ to find support for their own activism? (more...)

I focus in this final piece on a neglected aspect of Buddha’s teachings: the condemnation of social activism and political engagement. (more...)

Changing the world, challenging patriarchy, revolution, and the whole ethos of radical reformism is nothing like what the Buddha taught. (more...)

Buddhism is widely admired in the West for its commitments to progressive social activism. But is this really in the spirit of true Buddhism? (more...)

The poems of Homer, the Ilias and the Odyssey, mark the proper start of Greek civilization and can be seen as what shaped Greek identity, argues ancient philosophy Professsor Livio Rossetti. (more...)

According to Shénnóng, rulers had a limited number of very simple functions, mainly concerning agriculture. A ruler should teach people agricultural arts, inspect their fields, and keep a grain store. (more...)

What is especially intriguing for students of eremitism is the intimate interplay of personal motives and philosophical commitments behind Nanavira’s decision to live alone. (more...)

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC-65 AD) was a celebrated Roman writer, public speaker and philosopher and is today seen (alongside Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius) as one of the three greatest ancient Stoics. (more...)

Plato’s use of drunkenness, mainly in the Symposium but also in the Phaedrus, is a metaphor designed to defend Socrates’ philosophical inspiration. (more...)

We discuss Plato’s description of Socrates’ philosophical inspiration as “drunkenness” and/or Dionysian mania; Plato’s metaphor draws on earlier Greek poetry. (more...)

What if the Second World War had turned out differently? This article explains why counterfactuals and alternative histories can be misleading. (more...)

From the Garden of Eden to urban allotments, gardens have accompanied and enriched human history and culture from ancient times to now. In this article, Ian James Kidd traces the spiritual history of gardens as places of refuge from the world. (more...)

Robert Rodriguez is the author of The Book of Hermits and founder and editor of the website Hermitary. In this interview, he talks to us about the history of eremitism and the nature of hermit life. (more...)

Robert Rodriguez’ “The Book of Hermits” is a work of impressive scholarship, covering the global history and lore of eremitism from antiquity to the present. (more...)

A rhetoric of slowness and speed has been used by philosophers since the ancient periods to characterise and assess different ways of life. (more...)

For Heidegger, we let things be what they are. Chōmei, steeped in the Buddhist conception of the interdependence of everything, would concur. (more...)

Hermits, from the Greek “eremites,” (=men of the desert), are found in all cultures and at all times. In this article, we look at the phenomenon of hermit life as a whole, before we go into more detail in future posts in this series. (more...)

It seems that we should only be grateful for something good done to us. But already the Stoics had seen that sometimes benefits come disguised as burdens. (more...)

A timeline of the concept of love, from Plato and Aristotle, through early Christianity, courtly love and Christian mysticism, to romantic love and love towards robots. (more...)

In this mini-series of posts, we trace the history of the concept of love from Plato and Aristotle through the Christian world to the Desert Fathers. (more...)

A timeline of Aristotle’s life shown over a map of ancient Greece. (more...)

On March 28, 585 BC, Thales of Miletus was supposed to have observed an eclipse of the Sun. A short history of the difficulty of knowing the date. (more...)